“Just love people, be present, be real, be authentic. Those are the things that keep it real, keep us human, keep us in a shared experience.”

In our final episode of Season 1 on Finding the Helpers, we have an interview that manages to tie all our other interviews beautifully together. Mary Affee is a licensed clinical social worker, PhD candidate, and specializes in play and trauma therapy. She left her bustling practice in North Carolina to return to her original home of New York City for four weeks to be a therapeutic presence for frontline medical staff in hospitals as they faced the height of New York’s COVID-19 peak. 

Like many front line staff and our other interviewees, Mary stressed a few times during this interview that she is not a hero. Mary’s daughter was diagnosed with cancer at 16 years old, and Mary truly saw this deployment to New York as her time to pay it back to the medical staff who saved her daughter’s life. 

As we listened to Mary’s story, it was clear to us that with her clinical background, personal experiences, and the four weeks she spent working in New York hospitals, that Mary was not only going to help us share another powerful story, but that she tied together so many of the profound lessons we have learned through these interviews in the past four months. 

You will find more about Mary's interview on our blog.

Thank you for spending this time with us. Thank you for listening and helping us share these essential stories. As this is our last episode for the season, we want to share that interviewing all of our amazing guests has been such an honor for us. As we look forward to Season 2, we will continue to highlight the frontline of COVID-19, but we are also looking to expand our focus to other situations where individuals are working tirelessly to support their community in need. Please feel free to continue to communicate with us on ideas for interviews. We look forward to coming back soon but until next time, stay safe out there.

Please with connect us by emailing us at info@playingtolive.org. And finally, please subscribe to our podcast, rate us, leave a comment, and share the podcast with others who you think may enjoy it. We need your help to share this important story.

A special thanks to Mary for her time. Thanks to Josh Carter for the theme music (find more at https://prettylittlegoat.com), and to Lindsay Bingaman for writing our blog.

In this episode of Finding the Helpers, we had the pleasure of speaking with Isaac Cosmas, a South Sudanese refugee who Playing to Live met while conducting a mental health needs assessment in Rhino camp, a refugee settlement in Uganda. Isaac was there as both a refugee and working as part of the frontline staff providing supporting the mental health needs of other refugees. In his interview, Isaac shares with us his story of struggle, resilience, and brings to light the hardships facing refugees during a global pandemic.

Of about 1.4 million refugees in Ugandan settlements total, about 848,000 are South Sudanese. Isaac describes the uphill battle the South Sudanese face when arriving in Uganda as a result of not being as exposed to the world and to education as Ugandan people. He says he brought one idea with him to the settlement, “We have to beat all odds. We have to continue beating the odds. The benefits of life that come easily, we have to get to the hard way. We have to turn it around to make it succeed."

The pandemic has made things even more difficult for refugees. Isaac speaks extensively about cuts in donor funding, lack of access to information, and the immense stressors on frontline staff. He also shares about how approaches to this virus that have worked in other countries such as the United States and Europe will not work in countries torn apart by war where most citizens are starving or at risk of severe malnutrition, as well as the state of their medical system and lack of testing.

Despite all of this, Isaac and his community are still pushing through, “We still have the hope. And we’re not losing the effort. But I’m quite sure that after this pandemic people will face more serious mental health issues than food and clothes. And it might even kill more people than what COVID-19 is killing.”

You will find more about Isaac's interview, links to resources he has provided about the situation in South Sudan and his non-profit, and the self-care activities from the Playing to Live clinical team inspired by his story, on our blog. You can also email him at vedossd@gmail.com to learn more about his nonprofit (VEDO).

Do you know someone working on the front lines of the COVID-19 response? We want to hear from them. Please connect us with them by emailing us at info@playingtolive.org. And finally, please subscribe to our podcast, rate us, leave a comment, and share the podcast with others who you think may enjoy it. We need your help to share this important story.

A special thanks to Isaac for his time. Thanks to Josh Carter for the theme music (find more at https://prettylittlegoat.com), and to Lindsay Bingaman for writing our blog.

In the midst of what feels like every day brings more challenges and unveils more hard truths, our episode this week is dedicated to recharging through moments of hope, grace, and connection. Our interviewee is Laura Fuchs and she is a photographer living in New York City. With a degree in psychology from Barnard and ten years of photography experience, Laura brings incredible empathy and connection to her art.

When the pandemic hit, Laura realized as she walked around New York City that not only did people seem scared, but they weren't even looking at each other anymore. In response to that, she found herself trying to smile at people through her own mask. One day with a passing stranger's returned "smize" she realized that, despite masks, smiles could still be acknowledged and returned and just how special that felt. She began trying it out on a few people by asking if she could photograph them smiling behind their masks and “Mask Smiles” was born. 

Laura shares passionately that this project is not to invalidate how hard this time is. Not everyone can smile right now, and she is aware of and respectful of that. She reminds us, “These are smiles of resilience, these are smiles of strength.” And that in the face of all this trauma, it can biologically change your state to force a smile. She has dedicated her project to encouraging emotional connection at a time of physical separation, and has done so in a way which proves how possible that is. 

Follow Laura’s project on Instagram: @masksmiles. You can scroll through it, or you can submit photos of you, your loved ones, or those in your community, smiling behind your masks. You can also check out Laura’s other work, including amazing coverage of the protests in New York City, on her personal page: @laurasfuchs. 

Let’s help Laura teach people that we can connect through masks. Let’s find ways to stay connected in the face of such divisive times. And let’s get behind this message that we are in this together. It’s our best way through it. 

Read more about Laura's interview and the self-care activities from the Playing to Live clinical team inspired by her story on our blog.  

Do you know someone working on the front lines of the COVID-19 response? We want to hear from them. Please connect us with them by emailing us at info@playingtolive.org. And finally, please subscribe to our podcast, rate us, leave a comment, and share the podcast with others who you think may enjoy it. We need your help to share this important story.

A special thanks to Laura for her time. Thanks to Josh Carter for the theme music (find more at https://prettylittlegoat.com), and to Lindsay Bingaman for writing our blog.